Guaranteed to fail, a book-turned-film succeeds

"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," a staple of college English Literature surveys, is so widely believed to be unfilmable that you can almost imagine that when Laurence Sterne wrote it in the middle of the 18th century, one of his intentions was to flummox future cinéastes enamored of wigs, breeches and quill pens.

This may not be as far-fetched as it sounds, since there is something uncannily ahead of its time about Sterne's novel. In Michael Winterbottom's "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story" - not a movie version of the book but rather a movie about a movie about the book - one of the characters describes the original as "a masterwork of postmodernism before there was any modernism to be post."

An irritatingly glib description, to be sure - all the more so since the character in question has not read the book - but not altogether inaccurate. The 600-odd (sometimes very odd) pages of "Tristram Shandy" abound in digressions, chronological displacements and self-referential stunts, all of which seem to prophesy later innovations in novel writing, as well as guaranteeing failure for even the most imaginatively resourceful filmmaker.

Which might be an apt way to characterize Winterbottom, who is apparently capable of anything except repeating himself. Since the decade began, he has veered from Thomas Hardy ("The Claim") to hard-core pornography ("9 Songs") and from quasi-documentary realism ("In This World") to dystopian science fiction ("Code 46"). His wily, tongue-in-cheek "Tristram Shandy," far from refuting the idea that the novel could never be adapted for the screen, proves it in the most ingenious and entertaining manner.

This is not just a movie-within-a-movie, but a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie, something that sounds unbearably arch but that is swift, funny and surprisingly unpretentious. At a stately English manor house, a motley, harried crew is grappling both with the intricacies of their ill-chosen literary source and with the hourly chaos of setting up shots, adjusting makeup and costumes, and managing egos.

The largest of these belongs to Steve Coogan, the onetime British television star who also appeared in Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People." Coogan plays Tristram Shandy; his father, Walter; and most impressively and obnoxiously, himself. That character - let's call him Steve - is vain and insecure, an utterly believable caricature of movie-star self-absorption. His co-star and rival, who plays Tristram's Uncle Toby in the film-within-the-film, is Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon), and there is no matter too petty for them to compete over.

Rob is eager to promote himself from sidekick to second lead, and Steve is anxious to protect his dominant position on the marquee.

Meanwhile, Steve's girlfriend, Jenny (Kelly Macdonald), has arrived on the set with their infant son, hoping for some intimate conjugal time with her mate. He, however, is distracted by a flirtation with a production assistant, also named Jennie (Naomie Harris), who is apparently the only person in "Tristram Shandy" who has actually read "Tristram Shandy."

Winterbottom lives, breathes and thinks through his camera. "Tristram Shandy" moves so rapidly and easily along its hectic, tangled course that it seems effortless. Its on-the-fly, pseudodocumentary style owes something to trompe-l'oeil inside-show-business movies and television programs like "Extras," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Day for Night" and "The Player."

Quite a few reasonably well-known, mostly British actors flutter across the screen, including Shirley Henderson, Gillian Anderson, Ian Hart, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Northam, who stands in for Winterbottom as the busy, impressively unflappable director.

In the midst of it all, Coogan, Winterbottom and the screenwriter, Martin Hardy, mischievously conspire to shape a dog's breakfast of riffs and gags into a coherent and at times touching story.

Winterbottom, meanwhile, has performed a valuable service both to movie audiences and to devotees of classic literature. He has, for one thing, inoculated Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" against the depredations of earnest, prestige-minded adapters, while preserving a lot of the book's insouciant, inventive spirit (and some of its best moments). He has also paid loving, knowing tribute to the crazy enterprise of filmmaking, a torment to those mad enough to pursue it and a delight, at least in this case, for those of us lucky enough to sit and watch.